


If No One Is Around to Hear It, Does a Plane Make a Sound?

by Vyc



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, Terrible Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyc/pseuds/Vyc
Summary: Well, ithadbeen the perfect afternoon. Unfortunately for Martin, however, Arthur has a joke to share.





	If No One Is Around to Hear It, Does a Plane Make a Sound?

**Author's Note:**

> I can take absolutely no credit for [Arthur's joke](http://78.media.tumblr.com/86178ef1b77af454eb3b468ea358a8ba/tumblr_omy5o8dZAC1s5sh5do1_500.png). Nor can I actually take credit for the idea of posting this on AO3, instead of just tossing the bare bones in [Bendingsignpost](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost)'s chat on tumblr--he's the one to thank here. Or blame.

It was blessedly quiet in the portakabin. They were on standby, Carolyn and Douglas had gone off to argue someplace (Martin hadn't cared to find out where), and Arthur was checking Fitton Airport's minuscule gift shop for treasure. Now it was just him and the Standard Operating Procedures manual: the perfect afternoon.

Or, it _had_ been the perfect afternoon until a stampede of one pounded its way toward the portakabin, yelling “Skip! Skip!”

Martin sighed and closed the manual. There went his studying. 

“Hello, Arthur.”

Arthur was red-faced and breathing hard, but that didn't stop him from exclaiming, “Skip! I have a joke for you!”

“Oh yes?”

Martin inwardly prepared himself to feign a laugh. Like so many things in life, telling jokes was not something Arthur quite had a grasp of. He still remembered the philosophical debate that had ensued over “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“What does—” He broke off to giggle. “What noise does a plane make when it hits the ground?”

Martin could feel his eyebrows rising. He knew he should just say “I don't know, what noise _does_ a plane make when it hits the ground?”, but what came out instead was, “Well, assuming the landing gear wasn't working, I would imagine a lot of crunching metal and screaming.”

“It goes 'Boeing'!”

And off Arthur went into a proper belly laugh, bent double, arms clutching his stomach, the whole lot.

As Martin forced himself to chuckle along, he couldn't help but think it must be nice, finding the worst that humour had to offer to be so outrageously funny. Arthur didn't have to cope with stress-induced hair loss or the beginnings of ulcers, lucky sod.

“Isn't that brilliant, Skip?” Arthur asked once he'd got his breath back. “Dirk the grounds man told me it.”

“It certainly is . . . something.”

Maybe he'd go find Carolyn and Douglas.

**Author's Note:**

> Martin, stop being a sourpuss.


End file.
